To the Christian and Courteous Reader

To the Christian and courteous Reader.

IT cannot be unknown to any, except such as are ignorant of Satan's devices, and altogether strangers to the histories of former times, that when the Church comes out of Idolatry, and out of bitter servitude and grievous pressures of conscience, all her storms are not over her head, but she begins to be assaulted and afflicted more than before with heresies, schisms, and home-bred disturbances. Which through the manifold wisdom and over-ruling dispensation of God, who works all things according to the counsel of his will, is England's lot this day, that this may be to those in whom the Lord has no pleasure, a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, that they may go and fall backward, and be broken; and snared, and taken: that others, who are approved, may be made manifest; yes, that many may be purified, and tried, and made white; and that in the issue God may have the greater glory in making a sovereign remedy out of poisonful ingredients, and his people may say, blessed be the Lord God of Israel who only does wondrous things.

But now will the Sectaries be contented (as Christ's witnesses in former times were) to be examined and judged according to the word of God, and if they be found to be what they are accused to be, then to suffer accordingly? No, if so, they fear they shall run too great a hazard. Therefore they cry out for toleration and liberty of conscience, hereby going about not only themselves to fish in troubled waters, but to improve at once the manifold advantages of sympathising with the principles of the most part of men among us; for as it is a common plea and bond of union among all heretics and sectaries, how many soever their divisions and subdivisions be among themselves; yes, they give (in this) the right hand of fellowship to the Prelatical and malignant party, for they also put in for liberty of conscience: and as carnal and profane men desire nothing more than that they may not be compelled to any religious duty, but permitted to do what seems good in their own eyes. So liberty of conscience is a sweet and taking word among the less discerning sort of godly people, newly come out of the house of bondage, out of the popish and Prelatical tyranny; I say the less discerning sort, because those of the godly who have their senses exercised to discern good and evil, know that liberty of heresy and schism is no part of the liberty of conscience which Christ has purchased to us at so dear a rate. But is there no golden hook and taking bait for the Magistrate? Yes sure; for his part he is told that he may punish any breach of peace or civil justice, or a trespass against the State and against civil authority, but yet not put forth his power against any man for heresy or schism, being matters of religion and of conscience. As if both politicians and divines had been in a great error when they said that the end and use of Magistracy is to make bonum hominem, as well as bonum civem, a good man as well as a good commonwealth's man. Shall I add further, that all who wish well to the public from principles either of religion or policy, want not here their own temptations, persuading to a toleration of sectaries, in regard of the necessity of a union against the common adversary, and the great hazard, if not certain ruin, of the cause, by our own ruptures?

Under these fair colors and handsome pretexts do sectaries infuse their poison, I mean their pernicious, God-provoking, truth-defacing, Church-ruinating, and State-shaking toleration. The plain English of the question is this: whether the Christian Magistrate be keeper of both Tables: whether he ought to suppress his own enemies, but not God's enemies, and preserve his own ordinances, but not Christ's Ordinances from violation. Whether the troublers of Israel may be troubled. Whether the wild boars and beasts of the forest must have leave to break down the hedges of the Lord's vineyard; and whether ravening wolves in sheep's clothing must be permitted to converse freely in the flock of Christ. Whether after the black Devil of Idolatry and tyranny is trod under our feet, a white Devil of heresy and schism, under the name of tender consciences, must be admitted to walk up and down among us. Whether not only pious and peaceable men, (whom I shall never consent to persecute) but those also who are as a pestilence or a gangrene in the body of Christ, men of corrupt minds and turbulent spirits, who draw factions after them, make a breach and rent in Israel, resist the truth and reformation of religion, spread abroad all the ways they can their pernicious errors, and by no other means can be reduced; whether those also ought to be spared and let alone. I have endeavored in this following discourse to vindicate the lawful, yes necessary use of the coercive power of the Christian Magistrate in suppressing and punishing heretics and sectaries, according as the degree of their offence and of the Church's danger shall require. Which when I had done, there came to my hands a book called The Storming of Antichrist. Indeed, The Recruiting of Antichrist, and the Storming of Zion, (if so be that I may anabaptize an Anabaptist's book) — take one passage for instance, p. 25. And for Papists, says he, though they are least to be borne of all others, because of the uncertainty of their keeping faith with Heretics, as they call us, and because they may be absolved of securements that can arise from the just solemn oaths, and because of their cruelty against the Protestants in divers countries where they get the upper hand, and because they are professed Idolaters, yet may they be borne with (as I suppose with submission to better judgments) in Protestant government, in point of religion, because we have no command to root out any for conscience, etc. Why then? Is this to storm Antichrist? Or is it not rather a storming of this party, in the prevailing whereof God will have far more glory than in the prevailing of the Popish and Prelatical party, as himself speaks, p. 34. And if he will storm, sure some of his ladders are too short. If any one rail against Christ (says he, p. 23.) or deny the Scriptures to be his word, or affirm the Epistles to be only letters written to particular Churches, and no rule for us, and so unsettle our faith, this I take may be punished by the Magistrate, because all or most nations in the world do it. That all the nations in the world do punish for these things, I am yet to learn: and those that do, do they not also punish men for other ways of unsettling the grounds of faith besides these? The declining of some of the Epistles as being letters written upon particular occasions, and no rule for us, is an error which has been pretended to be no less conscientious than those errors which now he will have indulged. Lastly, if he would needs storm, why would he not make some new breach? I find no material arguments in him for liberty of conscience, but what I found before in the Bloody Tenent, the Compassionate Samaritan, and M. S. to A. S. so that my ensuing answers to them shall serve his turn. And now, Reader, buy the truth, and sell it not. Search for knowledge as for hid treasures. If you read with an unprejudiced mind, I dare promise you through God's blessing a satisfied mind.